Nov 26, 2021
Bessel van der Kolk MD is author of the seminal book The Body Keeps The Score. He spends his career studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences, and has translated emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of treatments for traumatic stress in children and adults.
In 1984, he set up one of the first clinical / research centers in the US dedicated to study and treatment of traumatic stress in civilian populations, which has trained numerous researchers and clinicians specializing in the study and treatment of traumatic stress, and which has been continually funded to research the impact of traumatic stress and effective treatment interventions. He did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD; was a member of the first neuroimaging team to investigate how trauma changes brain processes, and did the first research linking BPD and deliberate self-injury to trauma and neglect in early childhood.
Much of his research has focused on how trauma has a different
impact at different stages of development, and that disruptions in
care-giving systems have additional deleterious effects that need
to be addressed for effective intervention. In order to promote a
deeper understanding of the impact of childhood trauma and to
foster the development and execution of effective treatment
interventions, he initiated the process that led to the
establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network
(NCTSN), a Congressionally mandated initiative that now funds
approximately 150 centers specializing in developing effective
treatment interventions, and implementing them in a wide array of
settings, from juvenile detention centers to tribal agencies,
nationwide.
He has focused on studying treatments that stabilize physiology,
increase executive functioning and help traumatized individuals to
feel fully alert to the present. This has included an NIMH funded
study on EMDR and NCCAM funded study of yoga, and, in recent years,
the study of neurofeedback to investigate whether attentional and
perceptual systems (and the neural tracks responsible for them) can
be altered by changing EEG patterns.
His efforts resulted in the establishment of Trauma Center (now
the Trauma Research Foundation) that consisted of a well-trained
clinical team specializing in the treatment of children and adults
with histories of child maltreatment, that applied treatment models
that are widely taught and implemented nationwide, a research lab
that studied the effects of neurofeedback and MDMA on behavior,
mood, and executive functioning, and numerous trainings nationwide
to a variety of mental health professional, educators, parent
groups, policy makers, and law enforcement personnel.
You can find out more about him on his website here.